


The words that graze our wrists

by Lyrae



Series: Soulmate AUs [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Reichenbach Angst, Reichenbach Falls, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:27:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23050945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrae/pseuds/Lyrae
Summary: Everyone knew that the words etched on your wrist were your soulmate's last words and everyone knew that nothing you could do would ever change that.Sherlock Holmes had known that as well, of course he had known, that didn't mean he wouldn't fight to meet his soulmate and keep him at his side though...But since when fighting against destiny had ever amounted to anything?
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & James Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes & Jim Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes/James Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes/Jim Moriarty
Series: Soulmate AUs [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656592
Comments: 13
Kudos: 71





	The words that graze our wrists

" _ Good luck with that. " _

Those were the words that had been carved on Sherlock Holmes' wrist since he was born, perfectly normal words, ordinary even, a single sentence that gave absolutely no hints about the identity of their speaker.

Were they a girl? A boy? Did they even identify with a gender in particular? 

The words told him absolutely nothing, and for someone like Sherlock, it was torture. 

How was he supposed to find his soulmate when he had so little information? 

Because that was what was at stake afterall, love, happiness and all of the stupid things that always came with them in the fairytales. Sometimes he wanted to simply give up the pointless chase, but the part of him that had dreamed of being a pirate, that had longed for adventures and infinite expanses still yearned for that person able to fit him so completely.

The only things he had were the sentence and the handwriting, sharp, precise, clean, the kind of handwriting that meant business, that screamed of loneliness and cold night of boredom...

At least that's what how he liked to imagine the other, probably a man, someone like him, a genius bored to death by his peers, floating above everyone like the kind of pretty carnival balloon Sherlock had seen once when he was seven, alone, like him, but not bothered by the loneliness.

_ "Good luck with that. " _

Those were the last words his soulmate would ever tell him, and that's why he needed to discover who they were before he heard that fateful sentence.

It was strange wasn't it, how the universe had seemingly decided that giving humans soulmates was a good idea, but that it would be even better if you only understood who they were after you lost them.

All around the world, people spent their entire life looking for the one but they only knew whether or not they had succeeded when their soulmate left them forever. 

It would have been so much simpler if it had been first words carved on everyone's wrist, poets would still have found ways to make love end in tragedy but it wouldn't have been commonplace like it was in reality.

People had soulmates, people lost them and there was nothing one could do about it, it was the one truth that everyone could agree on.

Everyone except Sherlock Holmes.

He didn't want to live a tragedy, didn't want to lose the only person able to understand him just after finding them, so he would just need to find them as soon as possible and hopefully spend the rest of his life with them.

It was an easy plan, simplistic really, and maybe it could have worked if his soulmate had had the decency to be at least a little bit specific with his last word.

Good luck with that, Good luck with  _ what? _ Good luck with your exams? Good luck finding someone better than me? Good luck with your life? 

Sherlock didn't know, and if there was something he hated, it was not knowing.

The words were so vague, they could mean everything and nothing at once, he could imagine thousands of scenes, millions of different scenarios where one might say this sentence before parting ways.

_ Good luck with what? _

Years passed, Sherlock Holmes became a detective and always paid extra attention to everyone's handwriting, examining the curve of the cursives, the space between the letters in the hope of finding similarities.

Years passed, and Sherlock Holmes found himself slowly losing hope, closing himself off to the rest of the world, drifting amidst drug-fueled delusions. 

If he couldn't save his soulmate, then what was the point of even meeting him? 

If he was to learn of their true worth too late, too late to save them, too late to love them, then what was even the point of looking? 

If he couldn't save his soulmate, then Sherlock Holmes would defy the universe and refuse to meet them.

_ "Good luck with that. "  _

The words echoed in his mind, somehow taunting in their tonelessness, and he didn't know whether he wanted to cry or to laugh.

\--------

Working as a detective was calming somehow, therapeutic in a way talking would never be, he saw the words etched on the deads' wrists, the names half formed on their cold lips and everything made sense.

The work became his every-day, his solace, better than the drugs that slowed his mind, better than the cases Mycroft sometimes gave him, filled with faceless men and nameless organisation, better than anything he had ever tried to alleviate the boredom because for once, it showed him just how pointless life truly was. 

What was the point of soulmates anyway? Everybody died at some point, there was no way around it, so why should he bother himself with finding someone that would just end up dying one day or another? 

"She was my soulmate! " some of his clients would sometimes sob, holding their wrists close to their chest and Sherlock couldn't stop himself from sneering.

_ So what?  _

_ You met them, isn't it enough?  _

"You can't understand. " they would say and the detective couldn't have found himself agreeing more.

And then, John Watson entered his life.

For someone that never let anyone close, Sherlock got attached to the army doctor surprisingly quickly and he couldn't help but wonder if the other was the one.

Of course, John didn't really fit the profile he had imagined with the penmanship, but for once in his life, he would have liked to be wrong about something...

_ If only the handwriting had matched... _

But it looked nothing like it, where the ex-soldier's was somewhat small, scrawny and hurried, his soulmate was controlled, deliberate, but with the edges of something more just beneath the surface of those inky letters, something that burnt and raged just out of his perception. 

John Watson wasn't his soulmate but he was his nonetheless, his first friend, his best friend, his only friend, and Sherlock Holmes knew he could be satisfied with this life.

_ "Good luck with that." _

Jeff Hope screamed "Moriarty", and the detective knew he would need it.

\--------

Jim Moriarty - hi~, Sherlock's mind added automatically - was everything he had ever thought couldn't be mixed together. 

Perfectly controlled one second and completely manic the next, hissing, screaming, playing with his own voice like he played with everyone's lives, and so, so smart, a shining beacon of genius illuminating London's crime scene.

Sometimes Sherlock thought that in another life, a life where the search of his soulmate had gone differently, he could have been Moriarty and Moriarty could have been him, two sides of the same coin, completely opposed and yet so alike that looking at the other man felt like glancing at his own reflection.

They played, cat and mouse, spider and fly, Jim harmed John so the detective harmed Jim, helping Mycroft catch the other when he knew very well what would happen to him. 

He came back though, he always seemed to somehow, sharper, crazier, his mind fragmented beyond repair and glued back together in a parody of its old self.

Richard Brook, Reichenbach, it was all clever, so very clever, and Sherlock couldn't help but admire his enemy's genius. 

They exchanged messages and here they were, on St Bart's rooftop, Jim wanted him to die but the detective had a plan and everything would be alright, wouldn't it? 

_ "Good luck with that. " _

Sherlock silenced the little voice in his head and opened the door. 

\--------

They talked, turning around each other like they always seemed to, Moriarty told him to jump and he sounded crazier, more manic while somehow looking more exhausted than he ever had.

"You're ordinary, you're on the side of the angels. " and the disappointment, the excruciating pain was so clear in his voice that Sherlock couldn't help but deny it.

"I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them."

There was a beat, something invisible and imperceptible, a change of axis before Jim smiled. 

"You're me. " the criminal said "Thank you. " he added, blinking quickly.

Something was glinting in the corner of his eyes, but the detective ignored it.

"Sherlock Holmes. "

_ Jim Moriarty.  _

Why did it feel so right when their hands touched? 

"Thank you, bless you. "

How could someone look so happy and yet so dead at the same time? 

Something fluttered in his chest, a voice screamed in his head, but Sherlock did his best to push it in a dark corner of his mind. 

_ "Good luck with that. " _ familiar words in a familiar tone, the sentence rolling off unknown lips in a way that made his heart painfully clench in his chest. 

The criminal spoke in that tilting voice of his, bringing him back violently to reality. 

"As long as I'm alive, you can save your friends, you've got a way out. Well-" 

And he seemed so peaceful, so tranquil at that moment... 

"Good luck with that. "

The words hit like a lightning strike, too slow, too fast, and impossibly painful all at once. 

Time slowed, the world shifted out of axis once more, everything happened in an instant and the next second, his soulmate was lying dead on the rooftop, pieces of his genius brain splattered on the ground. 

Sherlock wanted to laugh or to cry, maybe both at once, but he did neither, he just stood there, completely still for a moment that seemed to stretch forever and then he was kneeling next to the other man, holding his wrist. 

_ I may be on the side of the angels but don't think for one second that I am one of them. _

This time he couldn't stop himself from laughing, bursting into peals of laughter that echoed emptily around him, permeating the cold London air.

Sherlock didn't know how long he kneeled next to the cooling corpse, watching his own handwriting etched on the criminals wrists, watching the way Jim's lips were curled upwards even in death like he had just pulled the greatest trick of them all, but he ultimately let go of the other, standing up.

_ -Lazarus is a go-SH _

Jim would have wanted them to die together, but the detective had lived all his life without a soulmate, he could very well spend the rest of his existence without him...

And his voice, his damned voice echoed in his mind a last time, the familiar words rolling on his bloody tongue and falling off his cooling lips. 

_ "Good luck with that. " _

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all liked this little thing :)


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